The Most Difficult Thing
by shinigami no baka
Summary: Trowa is haunted by memories as a mercenary and is unable to lose the efficient killer persona that he learned as a mercenary. A companion fic to 'And We Go On'.


The Most Difficult Thing  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing but this plot bunny.  
  
During the war, I was horrified of what I was doing. Killing was my job. It was what I have done for a long time, the only thing I remember doing since. well, forever.  
  
It's the only memory I have from my past, something that was constant in my life. I was a mercenary. It is all I remember doing.  
  
Being horrified while I was killing filled me. But on the other side, I was positively titillated.  
  
And by God, I loved it.  
  
Killing has two distinct differences in my world. You can kill, and feel sick as a bastard when doing it. And then there's another when you're so used to killing, you don't know how to stop.  
  
I learnt how to kill efficiently. So efficiently, that I don't know how to simply be just a human again.  
  
I remembered the man that told me, " I would teach you how to kill."  
  
Those words.  
  
" Quickly."  
  
"Accurately."  
  
" Efficiently."  
  
" Physical part would be easy. But knowing when to stop, is going to be hard."  
  
Those words, the education that I received, would haunt me. I can give excuses and say that I didn't know any better. The man who took me in into his mercenary group gave me a choice. I could either be their errand boy, or I can participate in the action.  
  
What naiveté I conveyed. I chose to participate in the action.  
  
And so, I learned to become a killer. Everything that man ever told me or taught, I never forgot. It's not something so easily forgotten when it has been hammered into you day after day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, and second after second. It's every bit of myself as Heavyarms was.  
  
The people I killed, or murdered for lack of terms, never even knew I was there in the room with them. The blood I knew I heard pumping through their veins, my own adrenaline rushing into shore as I prepared to strike.  
  
Watching the blood paint the room in an almost pretty fashion.  
  
And I, with my dead eyes, leave, having satiated my growing appetite to watch that knife fly true and meet its target.  
  
I've gone back to the circus, after the Mariemeia incident. Life was peaceful. It was what I've always dreamed of, having this relatively normal life. I had friends in the form of my former fellow Gundam pilots.  
  
But there was something that ate away at me, something that I couldn't quite place my finger on.  
  
It was that killer instinct that my mentor has so carefully told me about. The killer instinct that was going to be so hard to turn off after years of service. It wasn't ready for peacetime.  
  
I wasn't ready for peacetime.  
  
And so, I took to stalking the streets of the colonies. I left the circus because I couldn't stand it anymore, this singing frenzy that made my hands itch and writhe. I hated watching my extended family and think of them nothing more then my targets, my assignments. It was hard to think of them anything else but that.  
  
I had grown so accustomed to it.  
  
They couldn't find me. Even after they sent person after person to find me. I know how to hide. After all, alluding authorities was my forte during war years.  
  
They even found my old mentor, who had retired from the mercenary business and was hiding under an assumed name. Even my wily old acquaintance could not hide long from the genius of Heero Yuy.  
  
They know now that he trained me to survive. Trained me to kill.  
  
Wufei was right. People like us will never fit in at peacetime. Don't you think that I don't notice the restlessness of Heero? Duo's slow descent into a myriad of dark memories? Quatre delving himself in work to escape the nagging shadow of his father's death? And Wufei's lost of direction and of purpose?  
  
No matter how hard my mind says that it's wrong, and that I should turn these urges to kill off, my instinct says to do it, no matter how bad.  
  
My control is only so good. And I don't want to burden my friends with having to take me down after the death of that homeless man I met during my long walks at night.  
  
I'm going to save them the sorrow that they'll feel.  
  
I think falling off the tallest building in London should suffice. A long descent into the purgatory that I've made my way down since my chance meeting with my mentor.  
  
I wanted to forget. And whoever knew that in order to forget, all I needed to do was to take one tiny step off the ledge and just let it go.  
  
The wind is pushing past my face at an alarming rate. I have an odd urge to scream ' WHEEEEEE' as I go down but I don't. Tears, a precious and rare thing, pour faster from my eyes and leave a trail of silver globules reflecting the moon that shone with such luster.  
  
Ironic that my death would be so symbolic and filled with beauty.  
  
I feel a sharp quick blast of pain.  
  
It's over.  
  
Today in live breaking news. former Gundam Pilot 03, Trowa Barton was found dead at the foot of .. Foul play is not suspected. committed suicide. left letter. sorry. linked to murder of. more live coverage. reporter. at the scene.  
  
A silence fell over the four young men as they met together for the first time since. the nightmare that plagued such a major role in their lives ended and an even larger nightmare came in the form of peacetime. They drank to Trowa, who had in effect, found peace.  
  
His letter contained only the words of, "I have fought and gained nothing. Therefore I leave nothing."  
  
The End  
  
A/N: I write this as a short vignette piece as a private thought of 'What if.' War is never a glorious thing. It is bloody and often is the innocents who pay the price with their lives. I was curious as to whether any of the Gundam pilots found a particular joy in participating in such mass killing. Initially, it was done in Duo's POV, but I threw that away as my piece twisted itself into Trowa's POV, as he WAS trained by the mercenaries, and his past his vague. So I presented a 'What if' idea of Trowa's training as a mercenary and the background to killing. I represented that a life of a mercenary was all that Trowa remembers being and doing. And so, at such a young age, he was taught that killing was a way of life. Unfortunately, during when the time didn't call for his expertise anymore, he found it hard to leave that philosophy, and like Wufei, found it hard to fit in.  
  
This is a companion piece to the fic ' And We Go On'. I got some rather interesting reviews from the GWFF mailing list. and am expanding it. Shortly right now, the first chapter is rather a shocker and please do head over there to read the first chapter and leave a review! I promise a second chapter will be there shortly so that all this will make sense ^^  
  
See that lovely button down there? I'd be on happy chibi if you'd just leave a review ^^ arigato! 


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